Developers haven’t been shy about building luxury apartments in the centers of dense urban areas. Retailers are building distribution centers and warehouses closer to the center of these same big cities. And restaurateurs? When they want to make a big splash, they open in a downtown neighborhood. Why? It’s because urban areas are booming today.

Grandbridge Real Estate Capital recently closed a $51.5 million first mortgage loan secured by a 264-unit/538-bed Class-A student housing property located near a large university in the Midwest. The acquisition financing was originated by Minneapolis-based vice president Brett Olson.

Like all commercial financing professionals today, Colin Callaghan, senior managing director with the Southfield, Michigan, office of Berkadia, is keeping a close watch on the multifamily market. That’s because the requests for financing from developers and investors eager to play in this sector are still coming at a rapid clip. But there’s a trend with all those requests for multifamily construction financing: Developers are hoping to build luxury apartments, not those catering to renters with more modest incomes.

Each year, Midwest Real Estate News runs its Midwest Commercial Real Estate Hall of Fame edition, highlighting the careers of the top CRE pros in the industry. This year, we are also running these profiles online. Today, we look at the thriving career of Jake Sturman, managing director with the Indianapolis office of JLL.

Living near your job is one of the most important factors when it comes to qualify of life. The problem for many? Apartment rents are sky-high in locations near the center of cities, where many jobs are. That makes it difficult for a growing number of renters to enjoy the short commute times that help lead to a happy life.

The oldest millennials are now 37—the prime age for root-setting. As this generation starts to establish families, a wave of potential new buyers are moving into the market. In fact, millennials led home purchase activity for the fifth consecutive year, comprising 36 percent of the buyers in 2017.

The unemployment rate continues to drop. New jobs are added to the U.S. economy every month. And for the first time on record, the number of job openings is higher than the number of people out of work and seeing jobs.

Walker & Dunlop, Inc. has been approved as a seller/servicer under Freddie Mac’s Affordable Single-Family Rental pilot program, which is intended to offer additional financing options for workforce and affordable rental housing in one- to four-unit buildings.

Companies continue to experiment with their office space, often eliminating traditional cubicles and replacing them with open floor plans, shared workspaces and high-tech meeting space. You can debate whether workers appreciate this trend, but what do these changes mean for the commercial real estate market?

Real estate executives still consider multifamily the strongest commercial asset class. They’re also confident that foreign capital will continue flowing into commmercial real estate across the United States.

CBRE Group, Inc. recently launched Spacer, a free workplace planning product to help companies apply best-in-class workplace trends to their office layout. Targeting companies with 15-300 employees that may have never enlisted the help of a workplace consultant, the technology offers a user-friendly interface and a gamified experience.

Sears Holdings Corporation, the Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based holding company of Sears and Kmart, has announced a new round of store closures. The company will have 63 fewer store locations by the end of July, of which 25 are in the Midwest.

If Amazon was picking the location for its HQ2 solely on the strength of housing markets? Then in the Midwest, Nashville and Columbus would have the greatest chances of landing the tech giant’s second headquarters, according to the latest research from ATTOM Data Solutions.